Swalwell affair exposes the fragility of California’s top-two primary

A California politics column argues that Eric Swalwell’s sexual misconduct allegations highlighted a key flaw in the state’s top-two primary: if a candidate wins the primary, there’s no mechanism to remove them from the November ballot, which could force voters to choose between an alleged sexual predator and a Trump-aligned Republican. The piece calls for reforms such as allowing write-in candidates in general elections, automatically elevating the third-place finisher if a winner withdraws, or returning to party-nominating primaries, and suggests that modernized ballot tools could enable supplemental ballots. It credits the timely public disclosure in April with preventing a Democratic disaster and critiques the primary system’s failure to produce centrist governance, advocating structural changes to avoid similar dilemmas in the future.